• A very common entry point to biological information is through associated geospatial information, for example, the latitude and longitude of a specimen collection. Every observation or collection of an organism from a natural environment has a time and place associated with its occurrence. Associating organism occurrence with quantitative map coordinates allows us to address numerous informatics, biological research and practical management problems. Mapping and analyzing geographic distributions of organisms or communities is a basic requirement in environmental management.

• Founding members of this interest group recognized that there is a broader geospatial standards community addressing issues highly relevant to TDWG. There is a need to appraise and facilitate use of generic standards within biological community. A major goal of the GIG is to examine geospatial standards and to make recommendations for their use in biological information systems. The GIG is also in a position to advice geospatial standards groups on bioinformatics.

• The GIG is the appropriate venue for organising and spawning new geospatially related Task Groups for TDWG.